When a hydrocarbon containing formation has insufficient pressure to lift liquids to the surface without assistance, alternative methods are required for their recovery.
Conventional gas-lifting or intermittent gas-lifting are suitable techniques for that purpose. Gas-lifting or intermittent gas-lifting operations usually attempt to achieve as low a pressure as possible in the well bore opposite the perforations and in the hydrocarbon producing rock formation adjacent thereto. The flow of fluid into the well bore depends directly on the difference between the formation pressure and the well bore pressure.
Thus, it would be highly desirable to have an apparatus and process for maximizing this pressure difference to increase the production of hydrocarbons from the producing formation. It would be also desirable to have an apparatus and process which is adaptable to wells which are presently configured for gas-lift or intermittent gas-lift operations.